The idea of virgin birth used to belong to religion and myth. But what about the whiptail lizard? And what about its future for humanity?

If you thought reproduction without sex — parthenogenesis, or virgin birth —
was biologically impossible, think again. Stingless wasps do it, as do
electric ants and Beltsville small white turkeys. One species of whiptail
lizard even does it with apparent pleasure: Cnemidophorus uniparens has no
males, and the females fertilise their own eggs, helped by other female
whiptails who adopt the classic male lizard courting ritual — they mount
their broody mates and enthusiastically rub their cloacas against their
partner’s (identical) genitals.

Nobody yet knows exactly how the pseudo-mating of female whiptails can cause
an egg to start dividing, but biological understanding of parthenogenesis is
growing rapidly. The implications affect much more than lizards.